The Maze Runner was a great movie, well if you hadn’t read the book that is.
Thomas (portrayed by Dylan O Brien) wakes up in an elevator remembering nothing but his name…or that’s how it was supposed to happen. In the film the rules and principals of the book seemingly change/ vanish. Goodbye details is what I thought while watching the movie.
One was the remembrance of their names, the only thing tethering them to the world before they get sent up into The Glade. (The place where the boys live in the center of the maze.) Thomas is talking to Alby (portrayed by Aml Ameen) when it is explained that you don’t remember your name for a day or two after you get to the glade. Some of the individual characters have special traits. For example Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) had his ever famous limp in the book and in the adaptation Newt didn’t show any sign of a limp and alluded to it with a spoiler instead. There was also an issue with was the organization Wicked in the book was cut down to W.C.K.D. Even though they are pronounced the same the only thing that got cut out was two letters that apparently weren’t important enough to add when the whole book series is built off of this organization.
The lack of strange language is another big topic that threw me off. I’m sure if you woke up somewhere you had no idea where you were the people there and maybe even you yourself might talk differently. In The Maze Runner series, the large group of boys have three words that I think we can relate to in our society as swears. In the book these words are, shank, shuck, and klunk and they are all used to substitute for our modern day curses. Within the film only one character, Minho (Ki-Hong Lee), actually sticks with this lingo through the entire movie. This type of language adaptation is important to the viewers because different societies use different languages, and there are bound to be some changes in the language after being disconnected for so long.
*Spoiler alert* The Maze Runner film has different deaths from the book. Example one is Chuck (Blake Cooper). At the end of the book, Chuck dies because Gally sends a knife wind milling at Thomas and Chuck jumps in front to save his friend. In the adaptation Gally (Blake Cooper) goes to shoot Thomas and chuck dies due to a bullet wound instead. This leads me to Gally’s death. While Gally goes to shoot Thomas, Minho simultaneously throws a spear that stabs through Gally’s chest. This is a very large problem because in the book series he comes back later on and never died, although Thomas did hold him down and punch him. Alby does in fact get killed by a griever like in the book but not at the right time. In the movie the grievers attack in the glade and that’s when Alby is grabbed and killed. In the book series Ably sacrifices himself to the grievers while they are making their escape attempt down the griever hole. These left me feeling a bit unsatisfied and annoyed at the inaccuracy.
The plot was really the only thing followed throughout the whole movie. Thomas gets to the glade, then Teresa (Kaya Scodelario) comes, and Thomas discovers the griever hole and they escape.
Overall the movie left me annoyed, angry, and overall disappointed as a person who read the book. Though I’m sure if you hadn’t read the book you would have thought better about it than I.
